Monthly figures for JSA claimants by Jobcentre Plus office

The request was successful.

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

I refer to the dataset "Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance sanctions: decisions made to June 2014" which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics... (Table 1.3)

These figures are of little value unless scaled by the number of JSA claimants in each Jobcentre office. I have obtained these claimant figures from Nomis, but it quickly became apparent that Nomis is using a different set of Jobcentre office IDs (compare the offices named for Birmingham, for example). With no common ID, it is not possible to match the numbers together.

Data on JSA claimants are not available by Jobcentre from the DWP Tabtool. I would therefore be grateful if you would supply me with the figures for total JSA claimants by Jobcentre, using the same Jobcentre IDs as in the sanctions release of November 2014. Preferably this would be month-by-month for the whole period Oct 2014 - Nov 2014.

Please note that you granted an identical request in 2012: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

Yours faithfully,

Anna Smith

DWP freedom-of-information-requests, Department for Work and Pensions

This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
been accepted by the DWP FoI mailbox.
 
By the next working day your request will be forwarded to the relevant
information owner within the Department who will respond to you direct. 
 
If your email is a Freedom of Information request you can normally
expect a response within 20 working days.
 
Should you have any further queries in connection with this request do
please contact us.
 
For further information on the Freedom of Information Act within DWP
please click on the link below.
 
[1]http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...
 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...

Anna Smith left an annotation ()

Mr Harris, thank you for your annotation!

I was aware of the Glasgow paper but not of your work, which is very interesting.

I've downloaded your data: am I right in thinking that your analysis is based on claimant figures for just one month, October 2012?

Assuming this FoI request is granted, it should become possible to compare the claimant numbers and the sanction numbers for the whole period.

DWP IGS FOI, Department for Work and Pensions

1 Attachment

Dear Anna Smith,
 
Please see the attached letter regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Thank you.
 
IGS Freedom of Information Team
 
 

show quoted sections

Dear DWP IGS FOI,
Apologies for the confusion.
If you could send me statistics for each month from October 2012 to December 2014 (or as late as is available) that would be ideal.
Thanks for your help.
Yours sincerely,

Anna Smith

DWP IGS FOI, Department for Work and Pensions

2 Attachments

Dear Anna Smith,
 
Please see the attached letter regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Thank you.
 
Statistical Services Freedom of Information Team
 
 

show quoted sections

Dear DWP IGS FOI,

Thank you very much for this response.

However, this response is still using a different set of Jobcentre IDs from those used in the sanctions data [1].

Compare, for example, the offices named for Birmingham in the sanctions data and in your response - they are very different. This makes it hard to do any meaningful analysis of the data.

Would it be possible to re-issue this response using the same office names as in the sanctions data?

Yours sincerely,

Anna Smith

[1] Table 1.3 in https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics...

DWP IGS FOI, Department for Work and Pensions

2 Attachments

Dear Anna Smith,
 
Please see the attached letter regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
Thank you.
 
Statistical Services Freedom of Information Team
 
 

show quoted sections

Mr Harris left an annotation ()

Congratulations, Anna on getting this data disclosed! Do you intend analysis and publication?

Also Kudos to DWP for disclosing this information with its limitations instead refusing on the grounds of those limitations.

Anna Smith left an annotation ()

@Mr Harris Yes. It'd be great to get your feedback on the analysis before I publish it, if you'd be interested in that? You can mail me at annapowellsmith [at] gmail.com

And yes, many thanks to DWP for making this information available.

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of my FOI request 'Monthly figures for JSA claimants by Jobcentre Plus office'.

The data in this FOI release suggests that Mansfield Station Road Jobcentre seems to have an exceptionally high sanctions rate. I believe the most likely explanation is a mistake in the data, but would like to confirm whether this is the case.

At Mansfield Station Road, the sanctions rate (calculated as [total number of sanctions] / [total number of claimants]) is 23% over the two years. The average rate at all Jobcentres is 5.5%. This would make the rate at Mansfield Station Road twice that of any other Jobcentre.

I have derived the number of claimants from DWP official data: Table 1.3 of the data at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics...

And I have derived the number of benefits sanctions from the data released in my FOI request.

Please could you review the data, and confirm whether the data for Mansfield Station Road in both this FOI release, and in the DWP data above, is correct?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...

Yours faithfully,

Anna Smith

DWP freedom-of-information-requests, Department for Work and Pensions

This is an automated confirmation that your request for information has
been accepted by the DWP FoI mailbox.
 
By the next working day your request will be forwarded to the relevant
information owner within the Department who will respond to you direct. 
 
If your email is a Freedom of Information request you can normally
expect a response within 20 working days.
 
Should you have any further queries in connection with this request do
please contact us.
 
For further information on the Freedom of Information Act within DWP
please click on the link below.
 
[1]http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...
 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/freedom-of-informa...

Dear DWP freedom-of-information-requests,

It's been more than 20 days since I submitted my request for a review - please could you let me know how long this is likely to take?

Thanks for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Smith

John Slater left an annotation ()

You might want to consider complaining to the Information Commissioner about this. The DWP has been increasingly ignoring requests and if the Commissioner knows about it he can do something about it.

The link to the ICO that covers complaints is shown below. It's quite easy to do and doesn't take long

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/getting/

DWP IGS FOI, Department for Work and Pensions

1 Attachment

Dear Anna Smith
 
Please see the attached letter regarding your Freedom of Information
request.
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you
 
Statistical Services Freedom of Information Team
 
 

show quoted sections

Mr Harris left an annotation ()

Anna, congratulations on chasing up the anomaly and getting such an interesting response!

Mr Harris left an annotation ()

"The Mystery of Mansfield Station Road Jobcentre" blogged at http://ukwelfarebenefitstruthseek.blogsp...

Mr Harris left an annotation ()